First published in 1829 at the beginning of Victor Hugo’s literary career, “The Last Day of a Condemned Man” is one of the author’s first mature works of fiction. It recounts the thoughts of a condemned man as the day of his execution draws near. Inspired by the sight of an executioner preparing the guillotine for another scheduled public execution, Hugo quickly wrote this moving and eloquent work describing the condemned man’s final thoughts as he awaits his death. Hugo was a celebrated French novelist, poet, playwright, dramatist, essayist, and statesman whose work ushered in the Romantic literary movement in France, one of the most influential movements in French and all of European literary history. Like many of his time, Hugo promoted the virtues of liberty, individualism, spirit, and nature in rebellion of the conservative political and religious establishments of Imperial France, and eventually became known as one of the most gifted and influential writers of his time. “The Last Day of a Condemned Man”, along with Hugo’s other stories and novels, had a profound influence on writers like Albert Camus, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky and endures as one of the author’s most sensitive and starkly honest works. This edition includes a biographical afterword and follows the translation of George Reynolds.
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